Community Radio Seeks CRTC Support

Nov 8, 2018 | 6:00 PM

The airwaves in Vernon could one day include a community radio station.

The Vernon Community Radio Society has filed an application with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission to launch a new FM radio station to serve Greater Vernon.

Society President Gord Leighton (pictured) says the application has been in the preparation stage for some weeks and was finalized when the Society received a completed technical brief from their consulting engineer.

Leighton says the brief was made possible thanks to an $8,000 donation by the Kalamalka Rotary Club.

“The proposed new station has been assigned the call letters CFAN-FM by Industry Canada and has been branded as “Valley FM” by the non-profit Community Radio Society. The station will broadcast in stereo at 97.9 MHz on the FM dial, with an average effective radiated power of 581 watts.”

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Leighton, a former executive with Bell Media and a recent Vernon council candidate, says the CRTC will now assess the application, and ask questions of the applicant if required.

“Once the Commission considers the application complete, we expect the CRTC will issue a Public Notice with an invitation for comments. Following the comment period, the CRTC can then decide to issue a call for a Public Hearing, choose to issue a Public Notice approving the application, or they could reject the application.”

Leighton says once a license is granted, the society will launch a fund-raising campaign to pay for capital costs, estimated to be about $95,000.

by Corey Fischer